Debating slightly on CSL with Sungenis

1) New blog on the kid : Answering Simcha Fisher, David Palm, Alec Mac Andrew and in part too Sungenis, 2) And CMI also felt a need to "refute Geocentrism" ..., 3) It Seems Keating Wrote a Book, 4) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : What has that got to do with it?, 5) Were Greek Philosophers Evolutionist? And How Does Geocentrism Conflict with Observation?, 6) HGL's F.B. writings : Debating slightly on CSL with Sungenis, 7) Creation vs. Evolution : Creation Ministries International - a Galileo Fan Club?

Alex Naszados (status links to)

Galileo was Wrong : I couldn’t have done better for Geocentrism than Karl Keating did on Catholic Answers Live!
Copyright © Robert Sungenis February 23, 2015
http://galileowaswrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Karl_Keatings_Kosmology_website_version.pdf
via blog: Galileo was Wrong : I couldn’t have done better for Geocentrism than Karl Keating did on Catholic Answers Live.
Karl Keating unknowingly defends Geocentrism.
http://galileowaswrong.com/i-couldnt-have-done-better-for-geocentrism-than-karl-keating-did-on-catholic-answers-live/

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Did I see Sungenis describe C. S. Lewis as a "a liberal‐leaning Protestant that did not consider the Fathers of the Church as an authority on anything, much less authorities on biblical cosmology"?

*sigh*

First of all, there are Anglicans and there are Anglicans. Some play at being Modern without fully renouncing Christianity. Some play at being Protestant without fully renouncing the Catholic heritage of the Anglican community. And some play at being Catholic, without fully renouncing the Protestant anti-Roman polemic. CSL quite frankly belonged more and more the later he lived in this last category.

[Confer "Letters to Malcolm, chiefly on prayer" - published posthumously]

And he was shocking the real Liberals of the day by insisting on the miracles of Christ as much as Sungenis is shocking our dear little Heliocentric friends.

Robert Sungenis, how about taking back the mud you slung at CSL?

"Where did these Catholics get the idea that Scripture is only inerrant when it speaks directly about salvation and that its historical accounts (like Genesis) are filled with errors and non‐factual statements? They got it first from the liberal Protestants coming out of Germany in the 1800s, such as the Graf‐Wellhausen school of hermeneutics."

Thanks for info. That has gotten strong support in Swedish "Church" and I was not totally aware of it quite as much when I got involved at age 15 (not wishing to be Pentecostal), but I was very well aware of it before definitely getting out of it, beginning with decision I took at age 16 to be Catholic (conversion was delayed).

I thank CSL for having given me, along with ma, a great distaste for that kind of thinking.

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : What has that got to do with it?
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-has-that-got-to-do-with-it.html

Robert Sungenis

Sorry, Hans, but when Catholics start using CSL as their sole authority (as Keating did in his interview) for calling the Earth the anus of the universe, and at the same time fails to mention even one Catholic Church Father or Thomas Aquinas as holding an opposite view, then it's time to call CSL what he was, a Protestant and a heliocentrist that had no love for the Catholic Church, especially the RCC of Galileo's day. CSL may not have been a full-fledged liberal like many of the mainstream Protestants of his day, but he wasn't exactly a full-fledged conservative either.

Jonathan D'Souza

As much as I love CS Lewis, it would not be wrong to describe him as a 'liberal leaning protestant' even if it does sound harsh even to me, and compared to the sort today, Lewis would seem very orthodox. Lewis did tend to accept tenets of the scientific establishment in his day when it came to origins, though it is said he grew increasingly sceptical of it towards the end of his life, which he concluded not from any scientific arguments, but rather from the attitudes of its adherents. So indeed in his era he had a worldview that didn't take Genesis literally, yet continued to defend the facts of miracles. Today we will find Catholics who'll reject Genesis and the OT while simultaneously defending the facts of Transubstantiation. So on these certain things, Lewis had liberal ideas that Evolution could be true despite that he didn't fully give himself over to it.

Lewis admitted that as far as he was concerned the rift between the Catholics and the Anglicans was simply a matter of authority. And in many ways he did lean Catholic, perhaps thanks to Tolkien. But as far as we know we still remained Anglican, and essentially the Anglican issue is another protestant phenomenon.

But I believe what Rob was passionately getting at is that Karl Keating continually gets his authority on the topic of Geocentrism from anybody other than the actual Catholic Church. Even atheists would do for Mr. Keating. And he'd defer to atheists, anglicans, protestants etc. on this topic while ignoring the large bodies of evidence from Catholic authority while simultaneously accusing Geocentrists like Sungenis of falling prey to Protestant ideas. So Rob in labelling Lewis a liberal leaning protestant is simply highlighting the absurdity of Keating's arguments more so than he is attacking C.S. Lewis.

Robert Sungenis

J., much appreciated. You interpreted my position precisely.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Robert, in Geocentrism we are 6000 km above Hell - and God knows how many times more below Heaven.

CSL used an imagery which conveyed briefly how wrong it was to consider centre of universe a very exalted place and hence Geocentrism as self exaltation. Also, it is a fact that to St Thomas the heavier anf grosser elements gravitate to the centre of the Universe. The lighter and nobler going outward.

"a Protestant and a heliocentrist that had no love for the Catholic Church, especially the RCC of Galileo's day."

Where exactly do you get that from? Where in CSL do you find any support directly of Galileo?

He was a heliocentric by residual conviction, he had been an etheist, it is not as if he was enthusiastic for it per se.

"Lewis did tend to accept tenets of the scientific establishment in his day when it came to origins, though it is said he grew increasingly sceptical of it towards the end of his life"

Exactly - as an ex-Atheist he took some time shedding those ideas. Liberal leaning means leaning towards them, he was leaning from them.

"But I believe what Rob was passionately getting at is that Karl Keating continually gets his authority on the topic of Geocentrism from anybody other than the actual Catholic Church." - "Johnathan, much appreciated. You interpreted my position precisely."

One need not have CSL as ones authority to be either helio or geocentric, but Keating was abusing CSL and Keating's abuse is no reason to attack CSL.

As I linked to my own answer to Palm's little trick of putting CSL in the margin of his blog.

"So Rob in labelling Lewis a liberal leaning protestant is simply highlighting the absurdity of Keating's arguments more so than he is attacking C.S. Lewis."

It would have simply sufficed to say "not a Catholic authority". Which he is not any more than Tertullian the Montanist and a few more. And they are still read, and should be.

Apart from that, the paper is excellent.

It seems that Keating made exactly the same mistake about Geostationary satellites as Tom Trinko ...

Robert Sungenis

Hans, only in the geocentrism of the uneducated is hell in the center of the Earth. In fact, Hildegard placed hell away from the Earth. As for Thomas, he may have had some remnants of Aristotle, but no Church Father had those ideas. Moreover, in the Church's discussions with Galileo, the idea of the Earth being the anus was not promoted or acknowledged, at all.

CSL believed the RCC was wrong for condemning Galileo and heliocentrism as any other person of his day. In fact, Anglicans of his day used the RCC's supposed error with Galileo to claim that the RCC was wrong on many other things, including Henry VIII.

Yes, Palm is also a CSL lover who used the Earth as the anus argument. I wonder who plagiarized who?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"only in the geocentrism of the uneducated is hell in the center of the Earth"

OK, what are your exact sources for that? Hildegard was not exactly the highest authority of the Middle Ages, whatever she may have become since.

"CSL believed the RCC was wrong for condemning Galileo and heliocentrism as any other person of his day."

Where exactly did he state that?

Oh, plagiarism is not the good category.

And this is not an argument against Geocentrism. Saying Geocentrism has the unpleasant effect of making Earth a very ignoble place relative to the Heavens does not argue the ones holding that Geocentrism were wrong in any way.

Robert Sungenis

Hans, thanks for the compliment on the paper. I'm sorry we have a different view of CSL in this instance. In general, I liked the man, and I quote him in my book a few times, so it's not like I have totally rejected him. (A little secret: I would reject KK before I would rejecte CSL. Of the two, CSL was a much better Christian).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The real arguments CSL used against Catholicism was rather things like "going beyond Church Fathers" (a bit like Orthos do), or making the doctrine of Purgatory unpalatable.

Ah - may I quote you on this last (or for that matter this whole little debate)?

Robert Sungenis

Whatever I write here is for public consumption.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Goody goody.

However, I need to qualify my praise a little, since you again missed defending the small universe - you said nothing against Alpha Centauri being actually ... his words you quoted:

"So if you go to Alpha Centauri…26 trillion miles away…if it were to go in a circle around the Earth each night, to revolve around the Earth as these folks think it does, you would have to go 10,000 times the speed of light. And that’s the nearest star. What happens to a star that is 100 or 1000 times further away?"

Very dependent on heliocentrism, these parallax measures.

Robert Sungenis

Hans, re Alpha Centauri, in my books I allow for both a small and large universe, since we haven't yet proven either one yet. As for KK, I merely use his universe and turn it back against him. I'm sure you understand :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Ah, ok.

True, small universe is not proven any more than the large universe. However, there is sth fitting about it.

Did not know, have not read your book so far.

Did you know CSL liked to cite St Juliana of Norwich as quoting a vision in which Christ held all he had created in his hand "and it was not larger than a nut"? Or, perhaps more familiar, Chesterton saying he liked to adress the Universe in diminutive and it had never seemed to mind? Well, that is one thing, for the aesthetically fitting part.

Another is this : if radius of stars from earth is one light day, then circumference covered by each in time of one day is six point 28 (sth, sth) light days - a neat collection of week and day and sabbath rest (not fully seven light days) in one physical reality.

Of course, KK can have his universe back with implications he hadn't looked for. Like Dom Stanley Jaki gave one back to atheists with unlooked for implcations. No problem. Called "argumentum ad homines" not to be confused with "ad hominem".